Natalie Portman's New Mission

She will be ambassador for organization aiding poor women.

ByABC News
April 29, 2007, 3:01 PM

April 29, 2007— -- The Star Wars Queen has taken on a new mission -- delivering life-changing loans to women in the developing world.

"If a woman can't tell her child, 'I can feed you tomorrow, I can pay for your school," then where do they go? What do they do? What do they choose?'" she said in an interview on ABC News' "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."

The movie star will launch a new microfinancing initiative called the Village Banking Campaign, for the Foundation for International Community Assistance -- FINCA. The purpose of the campaign is to launch 100,000 new community banks.

"It's really trying to reach the poorest of the poor and offering banking services to them, in that they have the access to get capital for loans. They can get insurance. They can get access to things that we don't even question having access to, " the 25-year-old actress said.

As FINCA's "Ambassador of Hope," Portman recently visited women in Mexico who benefit from the organization's services. Her experience was recorded for a documentary that will be released as part of the launch.

"You meet these women who are younger than I am, who are 20, 22, who have four kids. And they used to have to work in a factory, because that was the only job available in town, for minimum wage, in horrible conditions, and be away from their children all day," Portman said, describing the dire conditions some women are forced to live in.

"And then they're able to get a loan and start their own business out of their own house and be with their children, and make more money than they were before, and spend time with their families," she said. "And it really, it changes the whole system."